I don’t think you really “got” her point. Yes, she certainly believed that one should value logic and reason over intuition and mysticism (including religeon). Her “axe to grind” was that she did not believe that people who produced and invented and built things should not have the fruits of their labor taken away and redistributed. She believed that it led to disincentives, laziness and corruption and is essentially a form of slavery.
Of course the flaw in her logic is that the “self made man” is largely a product of fiction. Even the most entrepreneureal and independent businessman is largely a product of his education, environment and opportunity.
And no one really believes in laissez-faire economics. Most economists believe that laissez-faire leads to the economy careening wildly between booms and recessions like an out of control semi-truck bouncing down the highway from one guardrail to the other.
Probably because it isn’t really a philosophy, more of an easy answer that absolves its believers from too complicated matters. It’s easier to believe the world is black and white that to acknowledge that sometimes there are various shades of grey.
And neither did she. In fact she never really made a big deal of her atheism, but considered it a logical conclusion of any rational mind. And actually, she did admit that not all religious values were invalid.
That’s funny, that’s exactly what Karl Marx said. He said that when laborers were forced to work for a wage instead of for their product, that is slavery.
It was my Father’s favorite book and I pretty much bought into the ‘Lets all love each other in Libertopia.’ fantasy for quite some time. I think you are selling the book short. I think it’s very influential.
I don’t think they were mindless. Mostly they seemed to rage against the hypocrisy and corruption they felt the political-economic machine often represented. And by following or even simply obeying leaders who are racist or otherwise corrupt people are allowing themselves to become part of that infrastructure and are just as culpable. Killing in the Name Of only has a few actual lines of lyrics repeated over and over, but they send a very powerful message.
I think that hits the nail on the head. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it. Sam Stone’s song was a political blog force-fit into a rap song. The point of a political song is that the music tells the story just as much as the words. It’s not simply about the words but the emotional intention you convey. There are loads of songs about personal sovereignty out there, this one was straight mediocre, not great, not terrible.
That’s not what Rand said. Rand believed that the dollar you receive for your work is a representation of a dollar’s worth of your labor. Laborers and employers should be free to enter into contracts where they can reach a mutual decision on the price of labor and the labor provided. When money is taken from you (via taxes, tariffs or some other mechanism) it is in a sense stealing your labor (iow slavery). In contrast, Marx believed (IIRC) that laborers were slaves of the system because they needed to earn a wage in which to live off of. Although I am unclear what is the difference between having to earn a wage from a factory owner and the state.
Marx talked a lot about the “alienation” of the workers from their labor. For example a worker in a GM plant attaching thousands of doors to cars he won’t personally drive. Presumably in communist society, people would only work on building their comunity. To Rand that is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if you own your product. You are exchanging your labor for what that labor represents in dollars (which makes sense since most products are touched by the hands of hundreds of workers). The products themselves end up bettering society as a whole.
Because regardless of her intentions, in practice it amounts to an ideological excuse for sociopathy. A rejection of any obligation to treat other people as anything other than resources to be exploited, or waste to be discarded. “Screw you, I’ve got mine!” in more noble sounding language. And it feeds into the ego fantasy of the wealthier and more powerful that they got there by their own superiority; not luck or the support of others. A non-religious version of prosperity theology.
And another ( related ) flaw is that it’s still “redistribution” when a businessman does it to his employees. That in fact is a common flaw in libertarian reasoning; it often boils down to “X is bad…if the government does it.”
Of course some people believe in it. Even on this relatively reasonable board people occasionally argue that businesses shouldn’t be regulated at all, that failing businesses should be allowed to fail no matter the consequences and so on.
But see, they’re both saying that when the product of labor is taken away from you, that is slavery. The only difference is that Rand thinks that money is a proper unit of produce, while Marx does not.
Once, when I was in the third grade or so, I asked my mother for some money so I could go to the neighborhood drug store and buy a candy bar. She told me we didn’t have any money and wouldn’t be able to buy anything until my father got paid some money he was due that weekend. (My father was self-employed and we were often out of money, about to get our electricity cut off, etc.) I had grown tired of hearing that by then and out of frustration and confusion asked my mom why people even needed money anyway? Why doesn’t everybody just go do their job, and then whenever they need something, just go to the store and get it? I can remember her chuckle to this day as she explained to me that things just didn’t work that way, and I would understand when I got older.
Now it appears to me that this episode illustrates two things: One, that the communistic approach is fundamentally immature and idealistic; and two, that many of this country’s liberals who favor ever-increasing government social programs and control have failed to make the jump where they realize that things just don’t work that way.
Yet even Raul Castro has come around to realizing that when the government just gives people stuff they have no incentive to work:
Cuban President Raul Castro has said several times that the ration book costs too much and provides too little. Since taking power from his brother Fidel in February 2008, he has been critical of Cuba’s paternalistic system, saying “…deep state subsidies don’t give people an incentive to work.”
[bolding mine]
And typically, their system, as with all communist systems, provides only meager provisions for its citizens:
“The thick brown ration booklet offers 11.2 million Cubans a diet including rice, salt, legumes, potatoes, bread, eggs, sugar and some meat. Many complain it only provides 10 to 15 days of food and that quotas have gotten stingier over the years.”
I’d almost be surprised every time that I see Ayn Rand= Libertarians, but the Libertarians have long since managed the bizarreness of the Big Lie on this one. Hint: Ayn Rand despised Libertarians. Ayn Rand on Libertarianism:
Ayn Rand despised Libertarians because Rand despised everyone who didn’t fall lockstep into what she said and bow before her superior wisdom. But Ayn Rand’s ego aside, the political and economic structure and beliefs of Objectivism is libertarianism.
I am a huge Rush fan. I think that in and of itself should illustrate how much Rush “espouses” right-wing themes. I think Rush succeeds because of the quality of their music. While songs like “Best I Can”, one of my favorites, by the way, or “Anthem” are perhaps most clear in expressing the Randian philosophy, it wasn’t one of the songs that made Rush popular. “2112” is among the band’s signature pieces, but the Rand in that is really, really downplayed, and people don’t like it because it expresses the stifling effect of government. They like it because it rocks hard.
And those albums were made in 1973 and 1974. They grew up since then.
So whenever you think that Rush is out there popularizing right-wing ideology, remember that I have been one of their biggest fans since I was a kid.
This is like Obama jokes - the left will not accept that anything that deviates from the left-wing line has any merit, no matter what. If this vid were socialist realism, they would be pushing for these kids to get a federal grant.
The product of your labor is not “taken away from you”. You have freely entered into an agreement to provide your labor in exchange for the dollar value of that labor. Rand believes that a society where people can enter and exit such agreements at will and have more choices where to provide their labor are inherently more free. It’s my understanding that you don’t have that in communist societies. The society decides where the best use of your labor is based on your abilities. They take the fruits of your labor and then reallocate them back to you according to what they think your needs are. You can’t earn more through hard word. You have to accept what you are given based on someone elses whims and you have no alternatives. In capitalist or objectivist societies, if you want more, you can work harder and smarter to get more. If you don’t like the arrangement you have made with your employer you can find new work somewhere else.
It seems a bit unfair to decry an entire political system based on it being similar to a single idea you as a child had. That it was the result of immaturity and idealism in your case doesn’t mean the same’s true of all communists, or that it’s necessary for communism.
Not that i’d necessarily disagree with your conclusions. Just that it’s not a very impressive or illustrative episode.
The personality traits and features that make one conservative do not lend themselves to creativity or humor. The proof of this is in the pudding of the free market. Or even in the not so free market - Fox News even tried forcing a comedy show into their lineup, and that effort still tanked. Remember the Half Hour Comedy Hour?
There’s no point crying about it or pretending that “if only the world were different,” Shodan would then be correct.
So what? Are you incapable of liking a band that espouses a different philosophy than your own? Most of my favorite bands espouse political philosophies I don’t agree with.
And I think you’re downplaying the message in their music. The album ‘2112’ is dedicated to “The genius of Ayn Rand”.
The song “Anthem” is a direct retelling of Rand’s short story by the same name.
“The Trees” is an anti-socialist allegory.
“Free Will” of course is a direct statement of libertarian/Objectivist philosophy.
“Red Barchetta” is set in a nanny-state dystopia where sports cars have been regulated away and the main character regularly takes the car out in an act of individualism and rebellion against the state.
“Tom Sawyer” is a character “whose mind is not for rent to any God or Government.” A pretty succinct statement of Rand’s main beliefs.
I could go on. Libertarian/Individualist/Objectivist themes were pretty common in Rush’s work all the way through their ‘Signals’ album. I haven’t listened to much of their later work, so I don’t know if those themes continued, but they were certainly visible throughout Rush’s most popular work.
